Forum:Why are the classes named by the iconic characters, not the class?
Reading the wiki, it got me wondering: Why are the classes named by the iconic characters? Given every player can (and most probably will; it's part of the "obligatory tutorial" of the first 5 levels, after all) rename their characters, shouldn't they be named after the classes instead? Opening Classes-menu and reading "Roland, Lilith, Mordecai, Brick" really makes one go "What the heck kinds of classes are those?" especially if you're new to the game (a friend linked me there when I was deciding my class and the names told me nothing). "Soldier, Siren, Hunter, Berserker", on the other hand, are much more self-explanatory (save perhaps for the Siren given Lilith is more of an assassin than anything else, while the name "siren" evokes the feel of "enchantress" or the like), and more importantly, they're classes. I know the Character bar was removed, but it could frankly be reincluded and then stuff about the characters themselves (origins & al. belong there, probably; they have no in-game impact so they don't necessarily apply to player's hero after all) could be written there, and the Classes-section would include the mechanical crunch of each class along with the Builds-section and such, which should logically be rolled into the Classes-section anyways. Also, the Characters-bar could contain all the Character-stuff rolling the NPC bar into it to be consistent, making NPCs a submenu (or alternatively, renaming the Characters-bar "PCs") and including all about the characters there. Or does someone disagree on this? The changed version certainly sounds much cleaner and more accurate than the present format to me. --Elealar 06:10, November 22, 2009 (UTC) ---- I understand where your coming from my friend, but like all other games where the classes themselves are listed there are various subclasses available as well. for each main class there are three tech trees, and each tree can have points spent into it to alter the character the way you want. there really is no point in trying to go by "hunter" or "siren" because after about level 15 or so, your character will get class mods that will alter that title. if you think of it this way, then not everyone knows what a plaguebearer is. but if you say lilith then everyone knows.Bw1132 08:18, November 22, 2009 (UTC)bw1132 A Plaguebearer is still a Siren though. So is a Mercenary. You can switch between them at will. They're class mods for the classes, after all; relevant piece of building a class, sure, but not entirely new classes. I don't really see how that has any bearing on the organization of the sidebar. I feel class is the mechanical unit; the bunch of abilities characters of each class gets. As such, naming them by the mechanical units seems most sensible. I was personally incredibly confused by the names, which is the primary spark for this suggestion. I feel they aren't descriptive enough when using the character names instead of the class names. --Elealar 08:24, November 22, 2009 (UTC) again i understand where your coming from. but my point on this is that once you play the game, it won't matter what they're called. the only reason they were even given names to begin with was just so people can have fun with them. i mean did you know brick came to pandora to find his sister? or that lilith and camandant steele are both sirens? it was done to try and give players a little bit of backstory for that characters. nothing moreBw1132 08:29, November 22, 2009 (UTC)bw1132 I'm with Elealar. The one naming convention that makes sense to me is to use "Hunter, Soldier, Berserker and Siren". -- WarBlade 09:17, November 22, 2009 (UTC) ---- You guys don't understand at all the way the game is presented to you, it's pathetic. It's meant to give the impression that you are actually watching a movie or a theatrical play, just like when they present the actors in a movie or in a theatrical play, but in a fun way, and you take part in this movie. You know, you could see like: Bla bla bla, with Tom Cruise, as the Overseer, and Cameron Diaz, as (whatever role you can think).... It's the same thing, but with their class. You've got Mordecai (real name of the guy), as the Hunter (his role in the movie), with Roland, as the Soldier, Lillith, as the Siren, and finally, Brick, as himself, which is supposed to be just comical but you guys are so deep into raw numbers and classifications and stuff that you forgot about the style of the game. So finally, you are supposed to name your class as the name of the guy you play in this story. I see you are all trying to prove that this way to name classes suck, but actually I find it very fun and quite different, instead of having stupid stuff like priest or warlock...when me and my friends talk about the classes we always say Lillith or Brick, and that doesn't mean necessarily that we role-play this game or anything. It's just a manner to associate a character and his traits and everything with his own personal name. Another example for all this is when you encounter some important boss, like Sledge. He is presented with a nice little animation and fancy stylization around himself, which is like to introduce him in the story. But you guys obviously didn't notice it, because you actually take this game too seriously. ---- Whuh? All I'm talking about is this Wiki. How it's presented frankly has nothing to do with what's an actual class and character name. A bunch of characters represent a bunch of classes, but aren't the only options you can play. Frankly, you're just misunderstanding the whole point of the thread. It isn't a knock at the game, it's a matter of organizing the wiki. All the classes have names. All the characters have names. If we have a wiki that's essentially a collection of information on a game, would it not make sense to call classes classes and characters characters? The characters do represent a class and all the classes are named in e.g. the manual. It's simply a matter of accessibility and convenience; having "characters" listed under "classes" is at the very least as confusing as having both listed at once with the exact same info. And na, the game isn't really a movie game. If you want to see a movie game, try Modern Warfare 2. This is still very much an "action RPG" in the vein of Diablo and the like, just from first person and with presuggested names and a nice humorous touch, very reminiscent in style from many JRPGs for example where character takes a set role and watches a story through those eyes. But what impact does any of that have on what's the best way to name stuff on the Wiki? --Elealar 22:01, November 22, 2009 (UTC) ---- ...Why don't we just go both ways and make it "Characters/Classes"? Bam. People looking for the character name? Bingo. People looking for the class name? Bingo. The classes/characters are interchangable anyway. People in multiplayer will say both "Found a Hunter artifact" and "Found an artifact for Mordecai." Kleptomaniac666 03:19, November 23, 2009 (UTC) ---- "Characters/Classes" makes a mess of the ease with which links are generated in a wiki. It should really be kept as a single word noun. -- WarBlade 04:31, November 23, 2009 (UTC) ---- Thank you for understanding what i was trying to say warblade. my whole point is that if you overanalyze anything it becomes dull and boring. but if you just enjoy playing the game then you see that the character names are a part of the overall story in themselves. besides what you all really need to be doing at this point is brushing up on your zombie killing skills since dr. ned's zombie island releases in 2 days.Bw1132 05:12, November 23, 2009 (UTC)bw1132 I was responding to Kleptomaniac666's suggestion. As for your points about overanalysing, they are as lost on me as they are to everyone else here. The only contributor here I see overanalysing is yourself, with the position that the character names are important. I don't agree that the names are "part of the overall story" at all. In fact, I promptly change them on every character that I generate and as for multi-player, the players only ever see the Gamespy ID anyway. Therefore it strikes me that the individual names have zero relevance. I'd rather see the classes listed. -- WarBlade 07:44, November 23, 2009 (UTC) ---- There needs to be a difference between the mention of a char/class. The class is mentioned when numbers are concerned, and the Character is mentioned when the story is concerned. I'm considering potential sequels with alternately-named classes. ---- I agree with the first post. They should be named Siren, Tank, Hunter, and Soldier. Not by the character names. The menu says classes, not characters. Either change the names or change the category. Unreal Warfare 12:46, November 23, 2009 (UTC) ---- well then the pages would then be character and classes but i do agree maybe they should had not merge or back to classes and character thing either way try not to make it confusing again I see the most logical options being as follows: 1. Keep the pages as they are, but replace the Character-names in the "Classes"-bar with the Class-names. 2. Rename the "Classes"-entry "Characters". 3. Reintroduce the "Characters"-entry, divorce the contents of "Classes" and "Characters"-entries, leaving the stuff specifically concerning Roland, Lilith, Mordecai & Brick under "Characters" and the stuff concerning Soldier, Siren, Hunter & Berserker under "Classes". Those are the only ways it makes sense. As it stands, it simply isn't accurate; Roland, Lilith, Mordecai and Brick aren't classes, so listing them under "Classes" makes no sense. For obvious reasons, I'm for option 3; it's the most complete and most informative for new people, and most accurate. That said, the other two are acceptable too. It's just that I don't think there's a reason Regardless of which option is chosen, it may also be prudent to do some other reworking in the sidebar; the "Characters"-menu should most likely include named PCs, NPCs and humanoid Enemies as they're all characters in the story. They could be grouped as such into submenus by "PCs", "NPCs", though it might work better as just a long list. This would leave NPC bar unnecessary, and do some crosslinking with the "Enemies"-bar, but that's just a good thing making the info easy to find. And the "Character Builds"-entry should probably be collapsed to either "Characters" or "Classes" (depending on which one is left; if both are left due to going with Option 3, it should probably fall under "Classes" given the builds are all about optimizing your class features). --Elealar 22:38, November 23, 2009 (UTC) ---- Elealer, I see your point on how you believe this wiki should be divided up by "classes" but the truth is, few people other then a complete addict would know the exact "class" they would be looking for right off the top of their head. This would require them to go onto their game and figure what they were directly looking for. Sure this reasoning may not apply to someone who's been playing as one class all the way through and isn’t interested on changing or learning about a different one for their character, but putting it in a manner in which they’ve made it, off of the characters name, (Brick, Mordecai, etc.) makes it more organized for the average person just looking to extend they're view. And for whom-ever made the comment, the character names are somewhat important, they may not have a direct effect or even reason in the main storyline they both have a detailed back-story that someone may (or may not) find interesting, and helps intertwine the player to the game. Also I do believe this game to be more cinematical then most. it may not succeed in its movie attempts but they tried and it is quite obvious from the cinematics in the game. ~Chris The problem with the detailed back-story is that whatever it is exists entirely independently of the game. The only back-story in the game itself is a few sketches in the opening prologue. To many of us, anything beyond that simply doesn't exist and seeing as we're primarily documenting the game here we can safely relegate anything published outside of the game to a secondary position. -- WarBlade 02:56, November 24, 2009 (UTC) ---- for the purposes of this particular game classes and character names are as klepto stated above interchangeable (all sirens are liliths, all liliths are sirens. all bricks are berserkers, all berserkers are bricks). this is reflected in the wiki by the sidebar entry classes being populated by character names as noted by UW above. what is common practice in one place/wiki, is not common law in all places/wikis. the confusion and controversy is (imo) fabricated there being only four. if you are still confused or put off i suggest you see Dr. N/Zed.